The Serb Problem

Updated March 20, 2008 12:01 am ET

Slobodan Milosevic must be smiling in his coffin. Earlier this week, a Serbian mob took over a United Nations courthouse in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica to protest Kosovo independence. In the ensuing melee a Ukrainian policeman serving with the U.N. force was killed; more than a hundred others were injured. In Belgrade, similar mobs attacked foreign embassies, setting part of the U.S. mission ablaze.

As in the Milosevic days, the Serbs were whipped into this frenzy by their leaders. Having spurned U.N. talks over Kosovo's...